This invention relates generally to the field of retail customer service pagers. More particularly, it concerns a tabletop centerpiece pager useful to improve promptness of service for food and/or beverage retail customers.
Coffee shops, bars, cantinas, fast-food outlets and fine dining establishments provide tables for customers to eat and imbibe. Some such tables are big enough barely for one or two customers or patrons to place their food or drinks. Often, tables are densely packed within the drinking or dining facility. It is difficult for a retail server, e.g. a waiter or waitress, to know when a customer is in need of service, whether the service involves ordering, replenishing, ticketing, clean-up or other assistance.
Tabletop ‘pagers’ are known to provide a mechanism for the customer to switch on a call light or visible annunciator when such service is needed. One such recent tabletop pager is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,039 issued Dec. 16, 1997 and entitled ELECTRONIC TABLE PAGER AND DISPLAY DEVICE. That pager features a “menu-like” stand employing a low-energy-demand light source that is switchable on or off by the customer or server. It features a base-mounted manual switch and a separate electroluminescent (EL) surface element operating with an inverter-supplied alternating current feeding in turn a low-frequency oscillator driving the EL element to attract a waiter. The surface element frames a pair of vertical display support members extending upwardly from a base, the support members permitting a menu or advertising card to be disposed therebetween. No other functionality is provided by the prior art pager device.